"The Navigator" News Blog

How NOT to Send a Marketing Email

I get a lot of emails sent to me for marketing purposes, and I send some out myself. Some are good, some are great, and every now and then, there’s one that is so bad it’s notable. This – name removed to protect the guilty – is one such email.

Hello,

I hope this finds you well.. I found your podcast and think your doing a great job… I wanted to see if you have interest in special guest speakers. I have build 100’s of Facebook ads and teach people daily via a online university how to be effective when running Facebook ads. Would you be open to allowing me to introduce my knowledge to your listers? I am willing to give you backend links and exposure in my (name of training course) course..

Thank you for you consideration.

At first glance, you probably saw the spelling errors. To me, this is an email that lacks both credibility and authenticity, and I’ll tell you how – and then I’ll give you some pointers for emails that have worked for me. First, the problems:

I don’t have a podcast, so he couldn’t have “found” my podcast. Credibility blown just a few words into the message.

He had no less than FIVE spelling and grammatical errors – for someone who is trying to teach people how to market.

So, what should YOU do if you’re trying to email market?

1. Be authentic! In this case, our friend is trying to establish commonality and is doing so by assuming that I have a podcast. Honestly, that’s probably not a bad bet; a good many people like me have one. But I don’t, so I know he’s full of it right out of the gate. If there really is no commonality, admit it – and just tell your target why you’re reaching out.

2. Spell check is not overrated. Granted, spell check wouldn’t have caught all of the problems in that email, but it would have caught at least three. Use it.

3. Use the person’s name in the email. Even if it’s a merged email, you can do that.

4. Never count on email marketing as your best foot forward. Response rates on emails are small enough that they make response rates on direct mail (old-style snail mail) look impressive.

5. Integrate email with a well thought out lead generation program via teleprospecting and social media, get all your messages harmonized, and you can win.

This email, obviously, didn’t get anywhere with me – but follow some simple rules and yours might generate some results for you.